The registry of those not consulted

10 The letter remained a poem. It was not entered among the property records.

11 And Nephi wrote upon the reverse: A symbol may speak to me without its maker having addressed me.

12 He kept his gratitude for the dream, his enjoyment of the buildings, and his own name upon his own correspondence.

13 For the Whole required neither a change of landlord nor the recruitment of every window.

1 And I shit you not, a clerk proposed that the Society recognize every wise person as having belonged to it from the beginning.

2 He made a list of the living, another of the dead, and a third of persons whose names would improve the brochure.

3 For each he wrote: Would surely have agreed, had the matter been properly explained.

4 This saved considerable correspondence.

5 Nathoni asked whether the list recorded admiration or consent. The clerk replied that the distinction complicated growth.

6 Then Nathoni entered the clerk upon the rolls of the Society for Unnecessary Meetings.

7 The clerk objected at once. Nathoni explained that the honor had been offered on his behalf.

8 The clerk said he had not accepted it. Nathoni supplied a fresh column.

9 They called the column ANSWER, and it remained empty beside many impressive names.

10 The Society continued to admire writers, musicians, thinkers, and people who had made another’s life easier.

11 But it ceased treating its own admiration as a signature obtained from the admired.

12 An empty chair could commemorate someone. It could not make them attend.

13 And the register grew more slowly, while the words written within it became somewhat more dependable.